New signs of life detected at Jodrell Bank as telescope enters future of space exploration

Revolutionary project ready to launch just months after site escaped closure

The universe in a dish: The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank is part of the Merlin network, which operates like one giant radio dish 200km across. Photograph: Anthony Holloway/Jodrell Bank Anthony Holloway/PR

The esoteric details of how stars form and what gravitational lensing can tell us about Einstein's theories may not seem the stuff of impassioned public protest, but when the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank was threatened with closure last year, there was a national outcry. Now the revered observatory is about to begin a new era of exploration.

At the height of the campaign to save it YouTube was flooded with protest videos filled with a fervour more usually directed at football than astrophysics. Apparently close to tears, Peter John Glynn told the camera: "It's a sad day to be a Briton. A sad day for those of us who have looked up to the stars and we've thought, 'There must be something out there, there must be something a little bit better'." Another protester, Charlie Georgia, implored her viewers: "If you have any way of helping then please help." A local radio station, Silk FM, even produced a protest song including the lyric "Don't take our dish, you'll leave a black hole/ You'll take away Cheshire's heart and soul."

Founded in 1945 near Macclesfield, Jodrell Bank began to etch itself into the public consciousness when its instantly recognisable, 76-metre-diameter Lovell telescope was used to track the Soviet Sputnik I satellite mission in 1957. It has since acted as a secret missile warning system, as well as providing insights into phenomena such as pulsars, quasars, neutron stars and black holes.

It now operates in concert with six other radio telescopes across central England – the so-called Merlin array. It was an upgrade to this system that was threatened by funding cuts, putting the future of Jodrell Bank on the line. But after the outpouring of public support helped revive the plans, that upgrade, called e-Merlin, is now nearing completion and is due for switch-on – or "first light" – early this year.

The seven linked dishes, which pick up radio frequencies from outer space, act like one giant radio telescope with a 200km-wide dish. They provide a much sharper image than any one could produce on its own, but the array is currently limited by the amount of data the telescopes can send to the base station at Jodrell Bank. By laying new dedicated fibre-optic cables, the e-Merlin upgrade will allow the combined telescope to handle data much faster – at a rate per second equivalent to three times the entire UK internet usage. The upgrade will allow the array to process in one day the same amount of data it currently takes three years to collect. The project's financial backers include the Northwest Regional Development Agency, Manchester University and Cambridge University.

"What we are doing with e-Merlin is massively increasing the spectrum we are collecting," said astronomer Dr Tim O'Brien. "It lets us extend the view to much longer distances and much fainter phenomena in our own galaxy."

The Lovell telescope, named after Jodrell Bank's first director, Sir Bernard Lovell, already has a long list of achievements. In its 51-year history, it has made its mark by providing valuable data about bright radio-wave sources in the sky. It played a big role in the discovery of quasars and in understanding pulsars, as well as providing a crucial test of Einstein's theory of relativity. It has helped to teach astronomers how planets and stars form and the nature of supernovas, gamma-ray bursts, neutron stars and black holes. Closer to home, the Lovell telescope tracked the 1957 Soviet space mission Sputnik 1 and the Ministry of Defence has used it as an early-warning system for a Soviet nuclear attack. It has even looked for signals from alien life.

The extra sensitivity of e-Merlin will also allow scientists to investigate less dramatic events. "As we look out into the distant universe the faintest radio sources we can detect are very distant star-forming galaxies," said Dr Tom Muxlow, an e-Merlin astronomer. "We want to see what the ordinary is, not just what the catastrophic is."

The ability to see more distant – and therefore older – objects will give astronomers a window into cosmic history. Muxlow wants to probe what he calls the "dark ages of the universe" – the period between 300,000 years and 1bn years after the big bang, when stars began to form. Physicists believe the big bang happened around 13.7bn years ago.

Telescopes that operate in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum – such as the visible range – need to be carefully positioned to avoid interference from the weather and the atmosphere. High, pollution-free locations in Chile and Hawaii are favourites, while the Hubble Space Telescope avoids these problems completely by observing the heavens from outer space. By contrast, e-Merlin is suited to the dreary British climate because the radio wavelengths it detects are not affected by cloud cover, and unlike telescopes that observe visible light it can operate during the day as well as at night. Wind can be a problem, though, according to telescope array controller Dr Mirza Asif. "It acts as giant sail," he said. When gusts reach 45mph or more, the dish must be "parked" pointing straight upwards.

The e-Merlin project was threatened in March by the decision of the Science and Technology Facilities Council – which had been told to cut its budget – to rate the project as "low priority". The £8m upgrade was almost complete and running costs were projected to be just £2.5m a year, but the rating would have meant shelving the project, putting the entire Jodrell Bank facility at risk.

Professor Simon Garrington, e-Merlin's director, said the public outcry played a huge role in saving the project. "It raised the whole game … I think it helped in that process of getting the scientific community to step up to the plate." That culminated in 300 astronomers from around the world setting out how e-Merlin would advance their fields, and this strong scientific case ultimately saved it. "These are projects which we hope will be the scientific legacy of the instrument," said Garrington.